First's in my new kitchen

first meal - I was sick so we had tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches

first time baking with a convection oven - mini cheese cakes!  

first meal after being sick - tacos

there have been others but I failed to take pictures....tailgate party...casserole....cookies...yea, I've been enjoying my new kitchen - and it's not quite done, but it's a fully functioning kitchen!  YEA!

Blame the heat

I haven't posted since July 3rd.  Seems like it's been longer than that. It's been so freaking hot here in what is now being referred to as "beige country" that if I do throw something together for dinner, I don't feel like taking pictures and posting and reliving the experience.  Most mornings breakfast consists of a smoothie for the three of us.  I make a picture of 'em before I go to work and each of us drinks ours at a different time during the day.  Sure is good when the temp is pushing 100 by noon.
                                                                 

     

other meals I've cooked have been something quick like fajitas, or a nice green salad is always good when it's hot out.  I guess I've tossed so many salads lately that even The Boy is tired of 'em.  He went to the grocery store with me Saturday and asked that we not have salads this week.  Guess what I bought? Yep, stuff for more salads.  When it's 110+ and the forecast is for more 100+ days you won't find me in the kitchen much. I told him he was welcome to brave the kitchen and learn to cook...yea, he's good with salad....

I did make lettuce wraps one night, which was a nice diversion from a salad but still used some salad ingredients (hence the title).  The smell while cooking was enough to make my dear hubby ask what it was, but once he ate it he told me it tasted MUCH better than it smelled while cooking.  The reason for the stench was the 3 Tbls of fish sauce used during cooking.  I'm not a fish fan but gave it a try and believed my friend Candice, who gave me the hook up to the recipe, that you REALLY can't taste the fish sauce.

with all the smoothies and salads one would think that I've lost a bunch of weight.  Factor in ice cream and lack of exercise because, well, did I mention IT'S HOT?!  I have not lost nor have I gained.  Yea for salads and smoothies.

It may be fall before I blog on here again.....blame the heat!

Blackberry cobbler

Dear hubby and I went to the Cherry Street Farmer's Market and got some fresh picked blackberries.  What does one do with blackberries? Make cobbler of course!  Here's the recipe I used http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1737,145188-252200,00.html

we had some while it was still warm with some vanilla ice cream...almost made us forget we were in the middle of a heat wave....

baking cookies in the car...

I've heard that when it gets hot out like it's been here lately that you can bake cookies in your car, so we put some Pillsbury flag sugar cookies on a cookie sheet and stuck em in the SUV window...

11:55 a.m.

1:15 P.M.

2:30 P.M.

 3:30 P.M.  we took em out...they could've stayed in another 30 minutes or so but were still pretty good....tomorrow maybe we should try cooking the brisket in there....

Dear Hubby's birthday dinner

these two were such great help for me tonight while I cooked up dear hubby's birthday dinner.





Today was Dear Sweet Hubby's (DSH's) birthday and since 1) the economy sux, 2) we are spending what money we have outside of bills on the kitchen and 3) we're broke (refer to #1) my main gift to him was a home cooked meal of his choice. He chose fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and corn on the cob. We have already had record breaking heat and we're currently under an extreme heat advisory for the next few days; I'm gonna fry chicken?! You betcha - he deserves it.

I soaked the chicken in the fridge in buttermilk overnight - I have no idea if it made a difference or not but even the white meat was good and juicy...it looks over cooked but it really wasn't...

 I love fresh corn! This was good and sweet...the 'tators turned out fluffy and creamy...see how the mixer blades left a fluffy mountain? :-)

I draw the line at making home made coconut cream pie.......Tippins pie at Reasors works just fine this year...

I'm reminded why I do this meal once a year....dealing with being under construction added an interesting new dimension to the cooking experience. I'm going to stick my head in the freezer for awhile now......

when all else fails...make goolash

I've been fighting a migraine for two days...yesterday we had leftovers from Father's Day dinner...today I decided that if I were to die first my guys would probably just sit and stare at my chair and wonder what's for dinner.  Why would I think such a thing?  The fact that everyone was sitting and staring at the t.v. and not a soul was stirring, with stomachs growling would be a good clue. I announced my splitting headache, no one moved. FINE! I'll cook something. I have a pound of hamburger in the fridge that needs to be cooked anyway. I'll get 'em - I'll something semi healthy and I'll use those veggie noodles I bought. This is what I came up with:

I boiled the veggie elbow noodles I found at Reasors...I didn't really look close at the label, they could be really high in food coloring and not really made of vegetables but I'm gonna go with they were made of veggies 'cause I'm a sucker for marketing sometimes...anyway, while the noodles were cooking I fried up the pound of hamburger with about a half of a chopped onion and a clove of crushed garlic, then I drained the noodles, added the hamburger (minus grease), a can of cream of mushroom soup, a can of mushrooms, a can of tomato soup, and a can of RoTel  - salt and pepper to taste.  It's some form of goolash, right? Did my guys learn anything? I don't think so, 'cause they liked it.

Father's Day dinner

Some friends gave us a couple heads of cabbage, some sweet onions, a case of cantaloupe, a half a case of oranges and 50 pounds of baking potatoes the other day.  I've given some of the potatoes and fruit away but still have plenty...

so even though I have very little space to work on, I decided to cook for my dear hubby for Father's Day.  He has been a pretty good boy this last year and the best way to show my man I love him is to cook a good meal so....Saturday evening I chopped up a head of the cabbage, added a jalapeño from our one plant and some miracle whip, honey, vinegar,  celery seed and called it coleslaw after it sat in the fridge till today's dinner.

This morning before church I seasoned the pork spare ribs

While dear hubby got the smoker going (yea, he went to church smelling like the smoker and cologne - what the heck, it's Father's Day) I peeled and boiled 4 of those baking potatoes and then made some potato salad.  While making the potato salad I remembered I needed to boil some eggs or the salad would be ruined.  The Boy brought me some eggs but one went to be with his cousin Humpty...

some of the white is mud from mudding and taping the walls...as you can see, The Boy drew a face on Humpty's cousin and it was proven that this family can not sit on walls...

After church, Dear Hubby took the ribs off the smoker - where they had been smoking at about 175 degrees for 4 hours - and we put them in a pan with some apple juice in the oven at 275 for another four hours (covered).  MMMMMMM!

                                  

I also decided that Dear Hubby deserved a home made cake - because I think I secretly like to abuse myself I went into the middle bedroom...the room that has almost everything from the kitchen and all of the contents of the former closet. The new closet hasn't been built and the kitchen obviously isn't done so it's quite the determined soul that goes into this room only to come out victorious....

yep - there's even a bathroom sink in there...that's going to have a home someday soon...I found what I was looking for though, which is amazing since I had the flu when the kitchen got packed up....

So, I'm going to make an orange cake...I look on www.cooks.com and I find this recipe for an orange chiffon cake so I decide to go for it...now if you notice in this recipe, no where does it say to put the cake mixture in a bunt pan...it says to put it in a pan - that's it.  It my hairbrained idea to battle that room.  Anyway, I squeezed several oranges and got some fresh juice, found my zester and got some of the orange zest like the recipe called for.  I did everything this poorly written recipe said to do...this is what my dear hubby got for his Father's Day dessert...

the thinnest pound cake ever!  I thought that it would be light and fluffy - that's what "chiffon" says to me...but NO!  At least I know I can brave the wilderness....Happy Father's Day my dear sweet hubby!  MWAH!